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The Lead

Ottawa has reached a deal with the provinces and territories to implement a new rent assistance program for small businesses, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The feds say the new Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) will lower rent costs by 75 per cent for small businesses that have been affected by the COVID-19 shutdown. Qualifying commercial property owners will receive forgivable loans, to cover 50 per cent of three monthly rent payments from small businesses facing financial hardship during April, May and June.

Government officials also told MPs at a virtual meeting of the House of Commons committee on human resources, skills and social development and status of persons with disabilities that more than one-third of the Canadian workforce has applied for the $2,000-a-month CERB to date.

Tonight is the Nova Scotia Remembers virtual vigil in memory of the victims of the mass shooting in the province last weekend. The vigil, hosted through Colchester Supporting Our Communities Facebook group, and airing on YouTube, will feature musical performances, and celebrities and politicians. It begins at 7 p.m. Atlantic time (6 p.m. Eastern) and is expected to run for about three hours.

The RCMP on Friday provided more details on last weekend’s deadly rampage through a 150-km swath of Nova Scotia, confirming the suspect was able use his disguise as an RCMP officer to knock on doors, pull over cars and ambush the two officers he shot. However, significant evidence has been lost because the suspect set fire to his home and garage in Portapique, N.S., and it burned to the ground, police said.

General Motors of Canada Ltd. is going to start producing up to a million face masks per month at its facility in Oshawa, Ont., the company announced on Friday. Fifty employees working two shifts will soon be used to produce the masks, the company said.

As Ontario grapples with COVID-19, nearly 15 per cent of its public health units lack a permanent medical officer of health — with acting medical officers filling the top post, in some cases, for years.

A total of five of Ontario’s 34 local units don’t have a permanent MOH, the provincial ministry of health confirmed to iPolitics this week. Acting medical officers are steering pandemic responses in places like Niagara Region, Brant County and Timiskaming, further north.

Experts say a decision from 23 countries to not unreasonably restrict trade of agricultural and agri-food products is vital for securing Canada’s food supply.

A statement from the World Trade Organization announced that 23 countries, including Canada, Mexico, the United States, China and the European Union, had agreed that measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 would not “adversely” affect trade in agriculture and agri-food products.

Simon Somogyi, chair in the Business of Food at the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, said the countries that signed onto the agreement, particularly the U.S. and Mexico, are home to the vast majority of agri-food companies that conduct trade with Canada.

About 1.4 million jobless Canadians in the third week of April are not receiving the new federal emergency benefit or employment insurance, according to a new analysis from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

More than a quarter of the world’s cases and deaths are in the United States, which surpassed a death toll of 50,000 on Friday. Georgia, Alaska and Oklahoma each eased some of the social restrictions they have enacted during the pandemic on Friday. (BBC News)

The Congressional Budget Office said Friday that the federal deficit would be almost US$3.7 trillion, nearly quadruple what the government had planned, after passing four mammoth-sized coronavirus response bills. The Trump administration’s predicted deficit would more than double the record set during former president Barack Obama’s first year in office, which was during the las major recession. (Associated Press)

A star-member of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration in Brazil has resigned. Now-former justice minister Sérgio Moro became a household name in the country for leading an anti-corruption agency and jailing former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. In a lengthy resignation speech, Moro said he was leaving the government because Bolsonaro had fired the head of the federal police force, but sources say other factors – such as the president’s reluctance to confront the COVID-19 pandemic with a science-based approach – contributed to his defection. (The Guardian)

A top Chinese public health expert said a vaccine for COVID-19 could be ready for the general population by early next year. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration believes a vaccine in the U.S. could be at least a year away, while the World Health Organisation said it could take 12 to 18 months. (South China Morning Post)

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa ignited social media by struggling to put on a face mask in a video address he gave to the nation about the importance of donning one during the pandemic. Watch the video here, courtesy of DailyMail.